Newsrooms in NY, CT and MA issued a Tsunami warning for the east coast of the United States on the morning of September 24, 2015 and after much confusion and a flurry of Twitter messages, the official explanation was that the alert was an accident. While reports talk about the NY and CT warnings, videographer Professor Doom was notified by a viewer that stated the same alert was issued in Massachusetts as well.
The explanation for the confusion as reported by NBC Connecticut, shown below:
“As part of a routine monthly test issued by the National Weather Service/NWS National Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer Alaska...the NWS New York NY office sent a tsunami test warning message over NOAA weather radio all hazards. This transmission was sent to local emergency alert systems for possible redistribution,” a statement from The National Weather service says. “There is no tsunami threat at this time.”
According to New Haven Register, the Tsunami warning triggered confusion and chuckles, but I would bet the people living in those areas weren't chuckling very much when they were informed a tsunami was going to hit them!
The alert mentioned Fairfield County; Long Island Sound, east of New Haven; New Haven County; Middlesex County and New London County.
This reminiscent of other similar mistakes, such as one in early October 2014, where a Tsunami warning was issued for the west coast, again by mistake and called a false alarm, causing people to "freak out" according to USA Today at the time.
A tsunami warning — which turned out to be only a test message — caused a bit of a stir along the West Coast Thursday morning. Here is the message that Seth Wayne, a meteorologist from KOMO-TV in Seattle, saw on his AccuWeather app at 9:37 a.m. PT:
"Tsunami warning in effect for Tacoma, WA until 10:30 AM PDT. Source: U.S. National Weather Service."
Not surprisingly, Wayne tweeted, "We've got a few folks calling in and freaking out about this message."
The alert was a mistake: Shortly thereafter, the National Weather Service in Seattle tweeted, "A test message for a Tsunami Information statement is showing on our website. This is only a test. There is no tsunami threat."
